Compliance Stuff

At a Glance The Second Circuit clarifies an employee’s burden is minimal, but not non-existent, to establish the employee held a sincere religious belief in conflict with an employer’s policy. The EEOC provides a framework for employers in determining whether a proposed accommodation is “reasonable” and what amounts to an undue hardship. Since vaccines became available in response to COVID-19, courts have dealt with an onslaught of litigation involving religious accommodation in the workplace. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit weighed in on when an employee’s accommodation request to be exempt from a vaccination requirement amounts to a sincerely held religious belief under Title VII. The case is  Gardner-Alfred v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York , 143 F.4th 51 (2d Cir. 2025).  The EEOC also recently weighed in with opinions that emphasize that an employer must face a significant hardship before it can show that the religious accommodation reque...

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Employees with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodations even if they can perform the essential functions of their job without an accommodation. Ability to perform the essential functions of the job is relevant to a failure-to-accommodate claim, but it is not dispositive. In a recent Second Circuit decision from March,  Tudor v. Whitehall Central School District , the court clarified the broad scope of workplace accommodation protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Specifically, the court ruled that employees with disabilities may be entitled to reasonable accommodations  even if  they can perform the essential functions of their job without one. In  Tudor,  plaintiff appealed a decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant on a failure-to-accommodate claim brought pursuant to the ADA. The lower court ruled that an employee’s...

KEY TAKEAWAYS In  Hunter v. Debmar-Mercury , the Second Circuit clarified the scope of marital status discrimination under the New York City Human Rights Law Marital status discrimination refers to discrimination based on an employee’s status as married, unmarried, or divorced, and not on an employee’s relationship to a specific person Employers should be mindful not to discriminate when making employment decisions, regardless of an employee’s marital status The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on April 8, 2025, clarified the scope of “marital status” discrimination under the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL) . In  Hunter v. Debmar-Mercury LLC, et al. , the Second Circuit held that discrimination based on “marital status” refers to discrimination based on an individual’s status as married, or not, and does not extend to employment decisions based on an individual’s relationship to a particular person. In  Hunter , the plaintiff served as the executive pr...